


Hassle

by AdamantSteve



Series: Spies Will Be Spies [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Anal Sex, Coming Out, Gay Sex, Get Together, M/M, Oral Sex, Requited Love, Spying, Voyeurism, phlint - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-24
Updated: 2012-09-24
Packaged: 2017-11-14 22:44:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdamantSteve/pseuds/AdamantSteve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint keeps crawling around the vents and spying on everyone. Phil just wants an easy life, but he also wants Clint, and never the twain shall meet. Some staunch advice from Captain America possibly does more harm than good, but it all works out in the end!</p><p>TL,DR: Follow up to Ventilation Voyeurism, this time from Phil's perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hassle

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by [Dunicha](http://dunicha.tumblr.com/).

Phil pinched the bridge of his nose and closed the video feed into Bruce's lab. Natasha was going to be the death of him, if Clint didn't get there before her. They were his best agents, and truly, they were worth the hassle, but it was so much hassle. Constant, unending hassle.

 

Clint was probably aware that Phil knew he crawled all over the vents and spied on people, and honestly, Phil didn't really mind all that much. He knew that if anything pressing were to occur, Barton would inform him in some unorthodox fashion, but he wasn't one to gossip, and since Phil wasn't one to listen to gossip anyway, the issue didn't really come up. 

 

He opened his email as he waited for his coffee to cool. It was childish but he still got a little shiver every time he got a new email from Steve, and one was sitting waiting for him now. He resisted the urge to turn his screen a little further away from Barton's vantage point from the vent as he clicked it open. 

 

Since helping Steve set up and begin to actually use his email account, they'd been swapping emails and had struck up a mostly-online friendship, which had somehow devolved into heart-to-heart mutual advice columns. Phil had let slip that he _liked_ someone and Steve had managed to correctly guess that it was Clint and urged him to do something about it just as Phil had urged Steve to do something about his own mystery crush. Phil might have given different advice if he'd known who it was, though he had his suspicions. Natasha certainly seemed to enjoy playing her man-eating game with him, and Darcy, having tired of trying it on with Phil tended to brazenly flirt with Steve whenever she was around.

 

He shot off a quick reply, deferring once again amid claims that he would do something soon, once he found the right moment, but he'd been telling himself that for nigh on eight months now, since waking up with a hole in his chest and realising he was in love. 

 

It was a mess. Even forgetting the fact that he was Clint's boss, it just wouldn't work. He was too much of a stick in the mud and Clint was like a hyperactive child. And he'd never given Phil any sort of indication he would be attracted to him beyond making his life ten times harder with all the hassle he gave him. 

 

Phil clicked through the security cameras. Tony had insisted there be no cameras in the individual quarters but they were littered everywhere else around the helicarrier. There were two agents kissing in a corner of the fuel bay but Phil let it slide. It looked like Peters and Wood, and he jotted their names on a post-it that he stuck to his desk before idly watching them for a while. He missed kissing. It had been too long since he'd kissed anyone. Too long that he'd been hung up on Barton. 

 

He clicked his mouse to run through the cameras again, stopping and going back to see a pair of feet vanishing up into a vent. Barton. Phil heaved a sigh of frustration and got back to work. He listened out whenever he knew Clint was in the vents. Phil had never heard him, much less caught him, but he knew Clint watched his office and sometimes actually snuck in when Phil was out of the room. Clint's pathetic attempts at Phil's password were always amusing. He'd thought about gluing the vent cover shut but kind of liked knowing when he'd snuck in. Even if it was just to mess with him, Phil would take any attention from Clint Barton that he could get. Which was completely pathetic, he knew. 

 

If Clint happened to interrupt Peters and Wood the next time they were making out in a corridor, that was probably just a coincidence.

 

Every so often, Clint would just be in his office, grinning at him with that ridiculous mouth of his when Phil unlocked the door. Phil would pretend to be outraged, threaten him with ever-escalating punishments which he never once acted on, but he'd be secretly filled with joy. He felt like a plant that was starved of sunlight in his succession of gloomy offices, and then Clint would be there beaming at him like the sun and Phil just wanted to bask in it. 

 

Essentially, it was a mess. 

 

Steve sent Phil another email, this time it was one of those saccharine chain emails with schmaltzy messages of love and hope and promises that if you emailed it to ten people your true love would reveal themselves to you. Phil pretended to hate it but was still rather touched. Instead of deleting it he archived it, like he did with all Steve's emails. As much as he'd been obsessed with Captain America when he was growing up, once he'd met him and gotten to know him, he didn't really _like him_ like him. He thought of him like a faithful golden retriever or something rather than someone he actually wanted to... do things with.  Not like Clint Barton. 

 

He put it out of his mind as much as he could and got back to work. Once there was a mission to work on it was much better: lots of things to do and people to see and work to be done and less time for pining over his archer. His _agent_. Agent Barton. Not _his_ archer. Not his anything.

 

-

 

Clint appeared (via the front door) in his office later that afternoon. Phil acted like he always did: professionally.

"Agent Barton. What can I do for you?" 

Clint stood nervously in front of Phil's desk and didn't drape himself across a chair or the edge of the desk like he usually did. "What's wrong?" Phil continued when Clint didn't respond.

He was clearly struggling to say something and Phil thought that perhaps he was going to tell him about Natasha, but he certainly wasn't expecting what he did come out with.

"Cap's gay!" He burst out, turning to race out of the room as soon as he'd said it. Phil pinched the bridge of his nose. What on earth was that?

 

Phil clicked through the cams again to see Clint actually _running_ back to his quarters and locking the door. He shook his head. So much hassle.

 

-

 

Phil emailed Steve. 

_Steve, Clint just ran in here and yelled that you're gay and then left. Aside from how incredibly unprofessional that is (which, ok, it's Barton), not to mention kind of homophobic, but also very unlike him. I don't know what to think anymore._

 

_I'm thinking of taking some leave, this place is driving me (more) nuts (than usual)._

 

A short while and some regrettable ebay purchases later, Steve knocked on Phil's door, entering with that knotted brow serious-face that meant something grave was happening. What now?

 

"Phil, I need to talk to you."

"Sure, Cap. Have a seat." Because Steve was polite and didn't just sprawl around uninvited.

"I... I don't know where Clint's been getting his information from but-"

"Steve, you don't have to-"

"No, Phil, it's ok. Because I am. Gay. I am a gay man." Steve sat up straight and defiant, pushing out his chin like Phil was going to say anything. He couldn't say anything, his brain was fritzing out. And not even because Steve was gay, which actually made a hell of a lot of sense now that he thought about it.

 

Phil rubbed his temples and thought of the half bottle of wine he had in his fridge back on land. 

 

"That's great, Steve. Uh, congratulations."

 _Congratulations_? Phil thought to himself. He really was off his game.

Steve laughed, a burst of levity that actually helped Phil settle his mind, even if only by the most fractional amount.

"Thanks. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before," and of course Steve would apologise for everyone else being a total dick today.

"That's alright. Thanks for telling me. It. It actually means a lot to me that you'd share that with me." Phil gave the best smile he could under the circumstances.

 

"So, did you tell Clint?" Phil asked. It seemed unlikely since the two didn't seem close, which was why Phil felt comfortable sharing his heartfelt secrets with Steve, though it was a lot easier over email without Steve's earnest blue eyes urging him to wear his heart on his sleeve and declare his love.

"No, I didn't. But, uh. I think maybe he heard me and... my boyfriend?" Steve cringed and started to go red.

 

Phil breathed in and out once before responding.

"On the Helicarrier?" 

Steve nodded, looking for all the world like a naughty schoolboy coming clean about some misdemeanor. As much as Phil wanted to probe and find out just who it was that Steve Rogers had been having relations with on the Helicarrier, something more pressing was at hand. 

Phil ran a hand through his thinning hair before dragging it down his face. "Steve... Clint has this... habit. Of sneaking around in the vents. So.. he might have been spying on you."

 

Steve flushed more at that before suddenly jerking his head up. "But wait! Oh no. Phil! I'm so sorry. Uh, I told Tony about- oh shit." 

 

And with that, _Steve_ was running out of Phil's office. 

 

-

 

Phil went to the cafeteria. He got some camomile tea and treated himself to a donut before patiently eating it in the cafeteria rather than taking it back to his office. It was a small rebellion, as rebellions go.

 

He tried to lay the facts out in his mind. Clint had spied on Steve, who was gay, who had been with his boyfriend - maybe Tony Stark - who he had told about Phil's crush on Clint. So the best case scenario was that Tony and Steve knew Phil's embarrassing secret. Worst case scenario: Clint knew everything. Maybe that's why he'd burst into Phil's office in the first place. It was a stretch, but the day had been an absolute clusterfuck and this was SHIELD after all, so who knew what could happen? 

 

He'd have to talk to Clint. 

 

He brushed the sugar from his hands and threw the cup in the trash on his way back to his office. 

"Barton, if you're in there, just stay there ok?" Phil said to his own office door.

Sure enough, Clint was there, sitting on the filing cabinet under the vent looking like he always sat there, and what of it?

Phil took a deep breath and walked around his desk to sit. "Would you sit in a chair for god's sake, Barton?" He sighed, tapping in his password when Clint's back was turned.

"Really, Clint? You think my computer password is HappyCappy123?"

Clint didn't miss a beat before replying, "Well it's gotta be something."

 

Phil resisted the temptation to roll his eyes and steeled himself for what he was about to say.

"Barton. About what you said earlier-" Clint started to shrug and most likely deny everything, but Phil continued regardless. "Sometimes, when we want to say one thing, but it's hard, we say something else instead. I would like to ask you... did you want to say something to me?" 

Clint looked like a deer caught in the headlights, frozen and wide-eyed. 

"Because if you do, then maybe I also have something I wanted to say, to you."

 

Clint now looked like a _confused_ deer in headlights. Phil shook his head. "I'm sorry. This was stupid. You can go."

"No! I... shit Coulson. You know I see things from the vents. Well, I saw... something. Which was super hot, by the way, but I shouldn't have seen it! And I'm... the worst. But I did. And whatever, I mean live and let live, right? But then Steve said something and then, uh, the other guy said something about Agent and Legolas and I just ran here and then I was like "What am I going to say?" I can't just... tell you all that, even though I have now and I'm a total fucking asshole." Clint swallowed and Phil steepled his fingers, happy to be feeling like he wasn't the person least in control in the room for the first time all day.

 

"Clint," Phil said finally. "Would you like to go on a date with me?" 

Clint gaped, and Phil couldn't help feeling a little smug that he'd managed to blindside him for once, even if he felt like his chest was about to implode. But the silence stretched and Phil started to doubt himself. Maybe it was all a huge misunderstanding and Clint was about to laugh in his face. 

 

But the O shape that Clint's mouth had formed was slowly turning into something resembling a grin. Eons passed until he finally responded with a silent nod. Phil couldn't do a lot more than nod in response. 

"Excellent. 2100 hours in the mess hall good for you?" Phil said, desperately trying to keep it cool. Clint nodded again, looking kind of... drunk.

"Very well. Dismissed." 

 

-

 

Once Barton had left the room, Phil found the paper bag that his breakfast danish had come in and breathed in and out with it, trying not to hyperventilate. He had just asked Clint on a date, and he'd said yes! Well, he'd nodded. Phil couldn't help but suddenly run through the various ways he might have misread the situation: the nod was involuntary and didn't mean yes, Clint just wanted out of there so he said yes so he could go, Clint was a robot. 

 

Phil emailed Steve.

 

-

 

Phil appeared at the mess hall just like he did every night he was on the helicarrier when he didn't have too much work to do. Clint was already at the table that Phil usually sat at, and he'd laid out a plate and cutlery for Phil. Phil lined up and got the special: the terrible pizza that everyone jokingly referred to as Shield Pie, since it was so hard and tasteless it could be used as a shield. It wasn't a great joke. 

 

"Evening." Clint said quietly as Phil sat down. "Sir."

"You can call me Phil, if you want." Phil replied, taking a bite of the cardboard and grease flavoured pizza.

Clint smiled to himself. "How is it?"

"As bad as always."

 

"So... do you like... stuff?" Clint asked, lamely, which made Phil laugh. Clint smiled shyly again, and Phil didn't want to let himself think it was his laugh he was smiling at. 

"Yeah, stuff is cool. You?"

"Stuff is great. I love stuff."

Phil couldn't help but grin.

 

"This is real romantic for our first date." Clint said, digging into the mystery-meat on his plate.

Phil laughed. "I wanted to pull out all the stops, you know."

Just then a bottle of wine appeared on the table. When Phil turned around to see where it had come from, Tony's back was disappearing out of the room. 

"Table service and everything." Phil said, pulling out the penknife Tony had given him for Christmas and uncorking the bottle. They were turning a few heads but Phil couldn't care less. 

 

They chattered about nothing whatsoever, having learned all of the usual small-talk fodder from years of working together. But it was nice all the same, the warmth of the crappy pizza and the rather excellent wine mingling with the warmth of Clint's bashful smiles. Phil was beginning to believe that perhaps this was for real, maybe Clint really did like him. After their food was gone and just the dregs of the bottle remained, having sat there for over two hours talking about nothing and neither of them making any sort of excuse to leave, Clint was the one who leaned forward to nonchalantly say: "I have some brandy in my room, if you want some."

Phil shrugged. "Sure." 

 

The walk back to Clint's quarters was electric, their hands brushed once or twice and Phil had to resist the urge to linger, still not sure what exactly was appropriate, but as soon as Clint closed the door they were on one another, teeth and tongues fighting, arms flailing and trying to grab something and just hold on.

 

They eventually found their places, slotting together as if they'd always been intended to fit that way, heads tilted just so, tongues dancing, hands tracing the edges of clothing. 

 

"Do you wanna do it?" Clint eventually asked, breaking away to brush his fingers along the shirt at the top of Phil's belt, bold as brass like he always was.

Phil couldn't help but laugh. "Are you kidding me?" 

Clint's face fell and Phil rushed to finish, "Yes! I do! Sorry. I never thought- Clint I never thought in a thousand years you'd... want me," he finished simply.

Clint rolled his eyes and Phil didn't quite know what to make of that, though his confusion was forgotten when Clint pushed his hand under Phil's belt as far as he could to brush coarse hairs and make Phil feel like the rollercoaster he was on was clicking up to the big rushing drop.

 

"No! Stop." Phil couldn't believe he was doing this, but... "We can't, not on here."

Clint's face fell, but he dipped his head. "The walls do have ears," he agreed.

"And eyes." Phil finished.

Clint had the decency to look at least a little embarrassed at that. 

"We'll be back in New York in two days." Phil looked warily at Clint, worried that he'd change his mind. They'd both been fairly good about ignoring one another's erections even if Phil did want to tear Clint's clothes off and ravage him right there where god knows who was watching and listening and recording. 

But Clint nodded. "You'll still want me then?" He asked, a joke, but not really a joke at all. 

"Yes. Definitely, Clint. _Definitely_."

 

Clint looked at him with eyes of promise and desire and all sorts of things that made Phil's urge to tear Clint's clothing off stronger. But he resisted. All those years of SHIELD psychological training weren't for naught. He reached for the door handle with one hand whilst the other was still curled around Clint's waist. 

"Two days." Phil promised, then slipped out, thankful that no one was there.

 

-

 

It was literally the moment that they got back to the tower that they started again, finding each others' hands in the elevator on the way up til they tumbled into Clint's private quarters. Phil had never been there before and tried to take it in: lots of purple blurring as he was kissed again and again, pushed into a bedroom - Clint's bedroom. He had a sudden flash of other people - men, women - that Clint might have brought back there and it just made him kiss all the harder, kiss them out of Clint's thoughts, if they were there at all. 

 

Phil fell onto the bed with Clint straddling him, and it just felt natural for his hands to fit on Clint's hips, for Clint's hands to fit so neatly either side of Phil's jaw. The kisses turned gentler, soft and tender, and then picked up again, turning rough and biting and hard, and Phil took them all, gave back as good as he got, upping the ante just to see how Clint responded. They were all equally delicious.

 

Clint drew back, hands still either side of Phil's face. He rubbed his thumbs gently over Phil's late afternoon stubble and looked at him with those wide, bright eyes. "Will you fuck me, Phil?" Clint asked, as if that was the greatest favour Phil could bestow on him. Phil just stared back. Clint was beautiful. "Please?" He asked, a furrow forming in his brow and threatening to ruin that open, trusting face. It spurred Phil into action after having laid there and just taken this tidal wave of kisses.

"Yes! God yes, Clint." He said, turning them both and kneeling so Clint's legs were spread across Phil's knees. Phil watched his own hands in a trance as he undid Clint's pants and pulled them down enough to let his cock free. He watched Clint's face as he took it into his mouth and that look of blissful surrender was worth all the hassle Clint had ever given him. 

 

He barely did anything before Clint somehow rolled them over and had Phil's cock in his mouth instead. Clint kicked off his pants and lazily rubbed himself, the sight transfixing Phil. He could watch that all day. Clint using those brilliant hands of his on that magnificent cock. 

 

After not too long, for too long would only end up making Phil come embarrassingly quickly, Phil pushed Clint off to turn him and get at his ass. Clint moaned when Phil kissed him there, moaned even louder when Phil slapped him a little, just a tap. 

"You really want me to?" Phil asked, looking in awe at his own cock resting on the cleft of Clint's ass. 

"Yeah." Clint replied, voice a little bit rough. 

"Do you have-"

"Oh shit, yeah, the drawer." Clint pointed across the room and began to move to get up. 

"No." Phil replied, pushing Clint back down with a hand across the small of his back. "Stay there, ok?" Phil asked - ordered - and could tell Clint was smiling from the sound of his breath. He had a fleeting vision of Clint vanishing into one of the air vents and leaving him there and felt a ripple of relief when he turned to find Clint was still there, where he'd left him. 

 

"Clint, you're a masterpiece." Phil said, making Clint laugh even though he'd not meant it as anything more than the truth. He _was_ a masterpiece. 

Clint jumped when Phil drizzled the cold lube onto his ass. Too much of it really, but he took the opportunity to massage those perfect cheeks, just ghosting over Clint's hole til he whined and Phil pressed in with a thumb. He was tighter than perhaps Phil had expected, or perhaps it was just that it had been so long since he'd done anything like this that he'd forgotten. It took a while for Phil to be satisfied but still probably wasn't long enough. He rolled a condom on and added more lube, mostly to watch Clint shiver again. 

 

He lined up and pressed slowly - glacially slowly - into Clint until his entire length was wrapped snugly inside. Clint heaved a breath and Phil did too, only then realising he had been holding his breath the entire time. He drew out almost as slowly, feeling Clint's muscles positively straining to relax, rebelling against Clint's will and remaining so deliciously tight around Phil.

 

He slowly built up speed, egged on by Clint, til he was driving into him with not so much speed as power, flashes of all the times Clint had added another spark to the raging fire that was inside Phil, all those grins and sarcastic asides. Feeling them all powering him along as he ground in and drew back out, in out, in out, growing more and more frantic til Phil stopped himself, pausing to pull Clint up, putting him on all fours so that Phil could reach around and coax him back into hardness. He kissed down his spine as he did so, moving gently as he took control.

 

"Are you still with me, Clint?" Phil asked. 

"Uh huh," Clint replied, sounding wrecked. Phil needed to see his face and drew out with an obscene pop which made Clint's cock throb in Phil's hand. He turned him so he was laying on his back and pulled his legs up before driving straight back in, Clint looking for all the world as though he'd regained something he'd lost. Sweat covered his brow and his chest. Phil leaned down to lick his shoulder and savoured the saltiness on his tongue.

 

Phil fucked him then, getting back to the original pace he'd set earlier, pumping Clint's cock in tandem with his own til he couldn't anymore, had to grip both of Clint's legs to hold on and pound into him. Clint took up the slack, opening his legs wider and reaching down to jack himself off, the sight of which drove Phil over the edge. He came hard with a final few thrusts, and almost withdrew but for Clint's hand suddenly round his wrist. 

"No! Just, stay. Stay there." 

 

When Clint came, his ass clamped down around Phil and he cursed, finally withdrew and tied off the condom. Clint looked unconscious when Phil hopped off the bed to toss the condom away and fetch some kleenex, gently wiping the various residues from Clint's body before tossing the tissues carelessly off the bed. There were times for DNA concerns and now was not one of them. He pulled Clint up the bed so his head was resting on a pillow before carefully wrapping himself around him and drifting off to sleep once Clint threaded his fingers into Phil's.

 

"That was amazing," Clint said fifteen minutes later. 

"Yeah." Phil replied. "It was." 

"Let's do that all the time."

"Alright." Phil said.

 

And they did.

 

 

 


End file.
